Companion–Platform is the “ecologically oriented” creative studio taking visual cues from wildlife guide books

In a creative industry that now exists so heavily online, it can be hard to find time to get into the great outdoors. But for the creative studio Companion–Platform, it’s an essential part of the duo’s creative process. “We spend as much time as we possibly can outside, closely observing and learning from the ecological systems around us,” says Companion–Platform. “We try to build things that avoid competing in the attention economy, but rather contribute to an attention ecology.”

In a recent project, they created the visual world to accompany an experimental outdoor listening party. Using audio software they rendered sonographs of five birds that would likely be in the park the day of the gathering, which became leading visuals in the promotional material, “translating the sonic environmental landscape into the visual”.

In terms of visual influences, Lexi and Calvin find themselves drawn to various media, including wildlife guidebooks, and their “visual systems and keys for directing and guiding your attention”; the way Don and Moki Cherry and Milford Graves “choreograph attention” through their experimental music; and the nature-focused films of Judy Irving.